Friday, December 19, 2008

"The Reader": A Movie Review.

January 21, 2012 at 12:40 P.M. "Errors" inserted in this work since my previous review will now be corrected. On January 20, 2012 I received among my print items a bus ticket confirmation for "Jorge A. Cisneros" heading to Washington, D.C., "go-to-bus" (New Century -- Antai Tours). This confirmation may be important to the individual who could have visited my sites, perhaps, for some reason or on behalf of some public official who shall remain nameless. I cannot understand why I would receive this person's -- or whomever is using this name's -- print out from my blog site: e-mail JAC@NYU.Edu and 347-852-4692. Publish America? Can you explain the cybercrime at my sites, Jorge?
July 22, 2010 at 11:08 A.M. A word was deleted from this essay and "errors" were inserted. I will struggle to make all necessary corrections.


August 5, 2009 at 1:58 P.M. A new "error" was discovered in this text which is not found in previous versions of this essay-review. Perhaps this newly inserted "error" explains the intrusions into my computer over the past several days, vandalisms of writings, and my continuing inability to access my home e-mails. Senator Menendez, can you shed any light on these mysteries?

March 16, 2009 at 8:50 A.M. "Errors" inserted, once more, and corrected.

March 15, 2009 at 3:13 P.M. More "errors" inserted and corrected.

January 15, 2009 at 8:55 A.M. I am unable to access my MSN Group, Critique. I was just obstructed in efforts to reach that site. I believe these obstructions and harassments are content-based and involve state action emanating from New Jersey or Florida.

Efforts at unilateral prior restraints on political speech are highly suspect under First Amendment law and should be prohibited. This is especially true when the governmental actor seeks to act surreptitiously, secretly, while disclaiming responsibility, publicly, for such actions or for the deliberate targeting of hostilities against a person who is politically designated for destruction. The contents of the speech that is suppressed, or whether officials agree with those opinions, is irrelevant to the offensiveness of censorship and psychological torture.

January 3, 2008 at 12:42 P.M. Three attempts to change the photo in my "Welcome" message at Critique were obstructed. Access to my e-mails is still compromised by hackers. I will try throughout the day to regain access to my sites in order to write.

December 22, 2008 at 5:47 P.M. Three attempts to access my e-mail have been unsuccessful due to obstructions. I will continue to try throughout the evening and tomorrow to delete e-mails from my hotmail account and to regain access to my group. Any essays or other writings vandalized during this period of obstruction will be corrected as quickly as possible. (See "What is it like to be tortured?" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")

My review of "Che" will be coming up, along with more profiles of New Jersey judges and their unusual sex lives. ("Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Jaynee LaVecchia and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

December 22, 2008 at 4:58 P.M. I was just obstructed in efforts to access my hotmail account. This usually means that "errors" are being inserted in my writings. My MSN e-mail account is still compromised by hackers. I will do my best to access my account and continue to write. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld.")

Unrelenting attacks against this review-essay (which is upsetting to Cubanazos) have resulted in numerous defacements of the text at MSN. I was just prevented from accessing my e-mails, again, while several more essays have probably been vandalized by Miami's champions of freedom and democracy, with the assistance of politicians in New Jersey as well as Florida, assistance which is probably obtained for a small fee. I will struggle to correct the damaged texts.

December 21, 2008 at 12:20 P.M. Public violations of federal criminal laws prohibiting conspiracies to deny civil rights are added to other underminings of the U.S. Constitution by New Jersey attorneys and judges. (See "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")

The Reader, (2008), The Weinstein Company, Stephen Daldry (director), David Hare (script), Kate Winslet (Hannah), Ralph Fiennes (Michael), Bruno Ganz (Law Professor). 4 Critics Choice Award nominations. Golden Globe and Oscars are sure to follow. Bruno Ganz in a quiet and underappreciated performance deserves a nomination. Kate's Oscar arrives at last.

http://www.theparistheatre.com/ (Great Manhattan movie theater, right next door to the Plaza Hotel.)

Bernhard Schlink, The Reader (New York: Vintage, 1997), excellent translation by Carol Brown Janeway.
Friedrich Schiller, Letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), reprinted as On the Aesthetic Education of Man (New York: Dover, 2004), p. 110.
"The Last of Marilyn," Vanity Fair, December, 2006, at p. 138. (Kate and Marilyn are associated in this magazine.)
"Isn't She Deneuvely? -- Profile of Kate Winslet," Vanity Fair, December, 2006, at p. 272. ("I know they are judging.")

There are surprising parallels between Ms. Winslet's screen persona and several of the great, iconic American cinematic images of women and femininity. Ms. Winslet's ability to be both American and British is suggestive of a fascination in her work with London theater culture and the magic of Hollywood. Winslet's screen power is derived from the fusion of these styles, combined with genius at understanding human frailty and portraying that frailty, honestly and bravely -- I know this is paradoxical -- but that frailty is also as a kind of strength. Comparisons: Melanie Griffith, Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep (The French Lieutenant's Woman), Halle Berry, Bette Davis (Of Human Bondage), Carole Lombard and Julie Christie (Darling), Jane Fonda in Klute.

I. "The only way you can become complete is with love."

Last night I wished to see the "Holiday Tree" at Rockerfeller Center. I've always hated the crowds and avoided the Christmas theatrics. For some reason, I wasn't bothered by the overflowing river of people on the sidewalks. Fifth Avenue was packed with affluent shoppers, many of whom wore coats that must cost more than the entirety of my worldly possessions. Also, it is always heartening to hear the laughter of children. Dozens of languages are spoken in a city filled with tourists from everywhere on the planet. I like that complexity and theatricality of the city. New York wears pearls and evening gowns at this time of the year.

The smell of chestnuts roasting and pretzels on carts owned by street vendors -- whose English vocabulary already includes all of the curse words that I know -- ensures that it is that special time of the year when a $2.00 pretzel goes for $4.50. Nevertheless, I am glad that I saw the big tree before standing on line for 45 minutes, freezing my unroasted chestnuts, to experience the most beautiful film of the year, so far.

May we have an Oscar for Kate, please? Yeah, we got it! After all, Ms. Winslet's genius is long overdue for the ultimate Hollywood recognition. At the Plaza Hotel, a horse drawn carriage trotted by when a little girl from England (or Connecticut?) said: "Look mommy, a pony!" My daughter would have added: "Can I take it home?"
This movie is a pony that you may take home. I will draw on a number of sources referred to in this rich cinematic text that recalls a literary work on which it is based that was featured in Oprah's book club. Thank goodness for Oprah getting people to read, even if the reading choices are not always mine. This book is certainly literature. My review-essay will begin with a discussion of the plot; I will comment on the cinematic allusions and literature evoked in the work; the jurisprudential discussion is very important and not examined in the American reviews that I have seen; philosophical-aesthetic and theological references will also be examined within the post-Holocaust German intellectual conversation and beyond. I will offer my assessments by way of conclusion.

Attacks on my computer may damage this essay. I will do my best to continue writing. I cannot say how many attacks have been launched against my text at this point. Saddest of all is the orchestrated media silence in America in response to mafia corruption, theft, rape, assaults and public violations of civil rights. If I were a resident of another country -- especially an Islamic society -- then New York media would be up in arms at these atrocities. When it comes to criminal censorship in New Jersey or the Upper West Side of Manhattan no one is troubled at all.
Book and film are attempts to examine questions of German guilt, responsibility, possibilities of justice and redemption for humanity in the aftermath of the Shoa. We are faced with the unaswerable experience of tragedy as well as the equally unavoidable human yearning for meaning and justice. The whole of German culture and civilization is brought to bear upon the examination of these questions. This is to suggest that Western and global civilization must be drawn into the exploration of motives and interrogation after such evil.

August 5, 2009 at 1:35 P.M. a new "error" was discovered and corrected in the foregoing paragraph. Curiously, this "error" is not found in earlier versions of this essay. It is important for people to understand the conditions in which these essays and reviews are written.

This dilemma of meaning against tragedy is examined, for example, in Susan Neiman's recent exploration of evil in Western thought, in the work of Edith Wyschogrod, also by Eva Hoffman, one thinks of Primo Levi and William Styron's Sophie's Choice. This is the theme of George Steiner's best work. I suppose the most obvious reference is Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus (art's healing power is explored in that novel through the metaphor of syphilis, which is symbolic of Nazism); the works of Gunther Grass; and also the parables of justice of the Sweedish-German playwright, Friedrich Duerrenmatt.

The great Romantics in German literature and their hopes are offered to readers and film viewers along with the pain. Lessing, Schelling, Schiller -- all are specifically alluded to in the movie. The Letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man is surely a sub-text of this work. This may be even more true of Schelling's Clara. Schiller's Don Carlos (together with Verdi's tribute Opera, Hannah is akin to Elizabetta) and Schiller's late play Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801) provide analogies to this author and the film-makers. "Hannah" or "Hanna" are equally acceptable, by the way, or "Hana" in the book and film The English Patient. Persons object to my spelling of this name for some reason. Time to insert another "error"?

Before turning to my evaluation of the film, I find it necessary to say something about a review of this movie which appeared recently in The New York Times.
I read the Times every day. Movie reviews are often good, sometimes not-so-good. Rarely, is a movie review in the "newspaper of record" monumentally, dismally, unforgivably awful and insulting -- insulting not only to the artists whose work is reviewed, but also to the intelligence of the readers of this periodical.

Manohla Dargis' so-called "review" entitled: "Innocence is Lost in Postwar Germany," in The New York Times, November 10, 2008, at p. C1 is an example of an article which should be embarassing to all of us. Whoever wrote this review -- whatever may be the person's "real" name -- he or she should never write a review of any complex work of art: " ... she orders the boy out of his clothes and into the tub, before opening a towel and her legs to him." ("Jorge A. Cisneros?")

This sentence is typical of the level of "sensitivity" and moral awareness brought to the task of assessing this complex and profound film on the part of a writer capable of numerous constructions such as this: " ... A woman (Ms. Winslet) materializes, as if from nowhere ..." As opposed to materializing from somewhere? Ms. Winslet's achievement, as an artist, for which she received the Oscar award was not to "open her legs."

This literal translation into English of Cuban slang amounts to calling Ms. Winslet a "whore." I will not remain silent nor will I refrain from returning this "compliment" to the person (or persons) responsible for it -- whose real target may have been elsewhere. To insult Ms. Winslet in order to hurt another woman would be like injuring a child in order to hurt her father. ("Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?")

Hannah says: "The only way a soul can be complete is with love." Michael (David Kross) is a fifteen year-old who becomes sick on a German street in 1958. He is assisted by a woman called Hannah (Kate Winslet), whose mystery is at the heart of the film narrative as it is central to the philosophical-political enigmas we are expected to confront. Hannah ushers Michael into her apartment and life. She cares for him, invites him to bathe and makes love to him. Hannah later washes the young man's body in a gesture of cleansing, atonement and worship that is clearly Christian-inspired.
Like Jesus washing the feet of the apostles, Hannah is engaged in an act of penance and devotion in worshipping the young man's body. The close up of Hannah's scarred and damaged feet at the end of the film suggests Christ's suffering that is shared even by the worst sinners. We see enormous pain in Hannah's eyes and guilt -- a guilt we do not understand, initially -- then we realize that these events are taking place after the Holocaust. We appreciate that this blasted condition of her psyche must relate to those years of colossal tragedy.
There was no "innocence" for Germany to lose after the Holocaust. This is a wounded and haunted woman. Hannah is clearly forlorn, drained, pained and deprived of understanding, even as she visibly yearns for human connection.
I wonder whether Nydia Hernandez, Esq. "knows" Manohla Dargis? Sadly, more "errors" have been inserted and corrected in March, 2010.

Hannah's reaching out to this boy is a revelation of vulnerability and hope for the future. It is not a scene -- nor are any of the scenes of love-making -- designed or intended to be primarily or at all erotic or seductive, much less prurient. They are about desperation and unfulfilled hunger for love and beauty in a poor woman's life.

Ms. Winslet's moments of weeping, as she listens to vocal music in a small country church during a rural outing, is almost unbearable evidence of human "homelessness in the world." (Holderlin) We are immediately aware of all that has been denied to this woman as well as to so many other women. "Please read to me ..." she says. This moment on film -- when Hannah is fully clothed and in a church -- is the instant of true nakedness for Ms. Winslet's character.

Hannah's hopes are not entirely obliterated, nor is she (in my opinion) denied redemption, because while she is incapable of loving anyone -- despite her best efforts, and as she is denied all beauty -- Hannah is worthy of being loved by Michael, himself flawed and striving for self-improvement. This love is the beauty that she receives as his gift. Michael hopes (through his daughter) to come to terms with history, both his own and humanity's painful history. Michael's vocation for the legal profession is about the concern with justice. No one person can atone for the Holocaust. A few coins in a tin can are not about absolution for Auschwitz. This gesture by Hannah concerns her own efforts at meaning and redemption made possible by the gift of affection, respect, even a kind love born of compassion provided to her by Michael.

The early scenes establish a relationship with The Summer of 42, a classic American movie seen by me as a very young man, in which death and loss are displaced by a young woman into a single act of love with (and for) a boy. The boy serves as a substitute for the young woman's husband killed in World War II, to whom she is able -- through this surrogate -- to say goodbye and, because it is her choice, to accept the loss of one future in order to begin upon another.
The film was controversial in 1972, because a deliberate sexual act became a woman's attempt to fathom the mysteries of love and death, classic themes of the Sturm und Drang movement. Especially important to this Romantic literary craze were Schelling's essays on Shakespeare, essays to which allusions are also made in Mr. Schlink's novel.

"What Schiller terms the 'aesthetic modulation of the psyche' in fact denotes a project of fundamental ideological reconstruction. The aesthetic is the missing mediation between a barbaric civil society given over to pure appetite, and the ideal of a well-ordered political state: 'if man is ever to solve that problem of politics in practice he will have to approach it through the problem of the aesthetic, because it is only through Beauty that man [or woman] makes his way to freedom [which is loving].' ... "

Terry Eagleton, "Schiller and Hegemony," in The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 106.

II. "There is no divine law, but we disobey it at our peril."

Michael becomes a law student and finds himself invited to "witness" the trial of a German war criminal, who turns out to be the woman he now knows as Hannah. Hannah's conviction results from her unwillingness to acknowledge exclusion from the world of literacy -- that is, of poetry and song, "I sing of arms and the man" (Homer) -- which is quite different from admitting not being able to read, which would have bothered her much less. To acknowledge that she could not read would have meant exclusion from literature and beauty's one warm embrace in her hard life. Such an admission would amount to a surrender of her humanity and hopes for redemption.

A promotion for efficiency is really termination from employment because Hannah will not abandon the illusion of membership in literacy, even at the cost of her position or her life. Montgomerry Clift's interrogation by Maximilian Schell in Judgment in Nuremberg is on screen at this moment, overlapping with this film: " ... Was my mother feeble-minded?" The photograph of the Jewish victim's mother that he carried in his pocket was proof of the continuing existence of beauty and meaning as the German-Jewish world ended: "It is not true what you say ... She was not feeble-minded!"

This termination involves the loss of yet another uniform for a woman who served the "Thousand Year Reich" because it was a job, her so-called "duty," nothing more. Hannah was fully in conformity with the laws of her society, if not with justice. Justice is perhaps impossible. Hannah's penal sentence is a result of legal incompetence and stupidity, together with the search for scapegoats: "She wrote the report!"

Hannah's response is directed at the judge: "What does it matter who wrote the report?" Hannah is quite correct. Germany wrote the report. Humanity is responsible for its contents. Hannah wants Michael to believe that she can live in his world. Hannah knows that she cannot live in that world of normality, goodness and beauty. Michael is incapable of what one must do in such a situation in order to make it possible for Hannah to live in a human condition. Make one world out of Michael's love that includes Hannah and her victims, himself and his child. Take off the legal robes and leave the briefcase, Michael, then join Hannah at the defendant's table. See Hannah Arendt, "On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts on Lessing," in Men in Dark Times (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968), pp. 3-31. ("Let each man say what he deems truth, and let truth itself be commended unto God.")

This world-making power that we all have is called the language of "love." With love, the paradoxes of justice are resolved. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Tegel Theology" is my immediate source. An illustration of spiritual generosity is provided by Lena Olin's magnificently retrained and dignified performance at the conclusion of the film. The words "beauty" and "suffering" blend into the idea of "love-as-freedom." Michael in this narrative -- whether literary or cinematic -- is a "stand-in" for the Friedrich Schiller who wrote On the Aesthetic Education of Man. (Please notice my MSN name.)

Hannah's almost sexual encounter with Kant and Hegel (when she touches the books on the shelves) in Michael's family library leads to a crucial scene from the novel that is left out of the movie:

"Once we went to the theater in the next town to see Schiller's Intrigues and Love. It was the first time Hanna had been to the theater, and she loved all of it, from the performance to the champagne at intermission. I put my arm around her waist, and didn't care what people might think of us as a couple, and I was proud that I didn't care. At the same time, I knew that in the theater in our hometown I would care. Did she know that too?"

The Reader, p. 72.

Michael could not speak his love, as Germany could not speak its guilt. I suggested the importance of Schiller, consider Letter XXIII:

"It is therefore one of the most important tasks of culture to subject Man [humanity] to form even in his purely physical life, and to make him aesthetic as far as ever the realm of Beauty can extend, since the moral condition can be developed only from the aesthetic, not from the physical condition. If Man is to possess in each individual case the faculty of making his judgment and his will the judgment of the human species, if from every limited existence he is to find the way through to an infinite one, out of every dependent condition to be able to make the leap forward to self-dependence and freedom, he must take care not to be at any moment merely individual, serving merely the natural law. If he is to be ready and able to rise out of the narrow circle of natural ends to rational ends, he must already have practised himself for the latter while he was already the former, and have already realized his physical determination with a certain freedom that belongs to spiritual nature -- that is, according to laws of Beauty."

Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, Letter XXIII, p. 110 (1795).

To love a woman is a creative act of transcendence for which great art prepares us. Loving a woman is journeying from nature (sex) to romance (eros).
Bruno Ganz's law professor suggests that "the state has to do with law, not justice." Wings of Desire is clearly one predecessor of this movie. To Kill a Mockingbird is another. Nuremberg was about the opposite proposition. There are such great evils that legal indifference and sophistry are diminished to irrelevance by them. Law includes -- and must do so -- an understanding of justice as an essential value that is transcendent of particulars. There was no existing positive law that allowed for the Nuremberg Trials. Humanity recognized that a moral abyss had appeared in history with the Holocaust. The very idea of law had been rendered absurd by legitimation of Nazi regulations and actions. The officials responsible for Auschwitz had to be punished. The suffering and pains of victims had to be accepted as a gift by the German people and all of humanity.

German women who pointed to "Hannah" ("Hannah" Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem is signaled for the audience in the courtroom scene), only to assuage their own guilt, are no different from Michael weeping in the audience (for this is Greek tragedy in a kind of legal theater). Michael is unable to rise and sit next to Hannah, which is what I hope that I would do in that situation -- without condoning or excusing her actions -- whatever they were. This act of loving solidarity is what I think my life is about. Kenosis. ("The Soldier and the Ballerina.")

Whatever tortures and murders this poor woman was responsible for were the sins of her nation and of all humanity reflected in her deprived condition and conduct. Hannah's sin ("it was my job!") is our collective indifference to suffering and rule-mongering. I give some money and recognition to a homeless New Yorker because he is -- in his universal humanity -- the women and children I love. That stench that assails our nostrils when we talk to such a destitute man is the residue of society's indifference and culpability for his plight. Indifference and cruelty stink. We punish ourselves when we punish those guilty officials. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")

The capacity for beauty along with starvation for learning is reflected in Hannah's eyes. This starvation results from denials of education in exchange for a uniform. Hannah's true uniform is the coldness of Michael's family. Germany's sanitized legal procedures amount to a critique of Western culture combined with a return to Romanticism's double-bind: Fitche's words burn in the mind: Frey seyn ist nicht; frei is der Himmel. ("To be free is nothing; to become free is very heaven.")

Germany and humanity must become "free." This is only possible with recognition and love. Hence, we receive this film and book that are intended to provide solace for suffering. Given the opportunity to leave prison, Hannah commits suicide. Hannah's real prison is the darkness to which she was consigned in childhood by a society that denied her an education and put a uniform on her, making her a slave to enslave others, murdering her spirit so that she could murder others. Humanity survives in her final recognition of genuine "duty" with acceptance of grace and kindness from Michael.
No wonder the "Cubanoids" don't like this review and continue to deface the text with impunity. Censors are always Nazi-like monsters who can only bring suffering and oppression to any nation unwise enough to receive them. ("American Hypocrisy and Luis Posada Carriles.")

The words read to her on tape by Michael escort her to that literary landscape where beauty and gentleness are real, rescuing her fragments of broken humanity, gathering them up in song and beauty, as flowers offered to the dead. Literature is the "Forest of Arden." Mr. Schlink may say: "I sing of arms and a woman -- of the feminization of war and atrocity in the rubble of civilization."

"Failure is nobler than success. Self-immolation for a cause is the thing, not the validity of the cause itself, [Think of Himmler and Bonhoeffer,] for it is the sacrifice undertaken for its sake that sanctifies the cause, not some intrinsic property of it. These are the symptoms of the Romantic attitude. Hence, the worship of the artist" -- we see Lessing's plays, references to Schiller, Schelling's overtures to Clara, the name of Goethe on a blackboard -- "whether in sound, or word, or colour, [sic.] as the highest manifestation of the ever-active spirit, and the popular image of the artist in his garett, wild-eyed, wild-haired, poor, solitary, mocked-at; but independent, free, spiritually superior to Philistine tormentors."

Isaiah Berlin, "Preface," to H.G. Schenk, The Mind of the European Romantics: An Essay in Cultural History (New York: Doubleday, 1969), p. xvii.

I should acknowledge that someone I love has German ancestry (also, Jewish heritage, I believe) and that there are members of my family with a German name. These issues of German identity and guilt are personal, for me, also philosophical. It is also true that "Menendez" is a converso name that can be traced to Jews forced to convert to Christianity in Spain by the Inquisition. Not everyone is happy to make this discovery. I am sure that Sam Mendes will be delighted, as I am, to learn this historical fact. We have Jewish ancestry. Perhaps Harvey Weinstein will donate a yamulke to Mr. Mendes for purposes of celebration.

Mr. Fiennes is weary and weighted with responsibility for emotional cultivation to offset intellect. Christian wisdom without the trappings of myth provides solace. High German culture also creates "respect for individuality, for the creative impulse, for the unique, the independent, for freedom to live and act in the light of personal, undictated beliefs and principles, of undistorted emotional needs, for the value of private life, of personal relationships, of the individual conscience, [and] of human rights." Ibid.

This brings us to theology and the resolutions of our legal questions:

"In Traps, the best of [Friedrich Duerrenmatt's] novels, a travelling salesman's car breaks down. An elderly man, a former judge, puts him up for the night. There is a dinner party. The guests are a former prosecutor, a former defense attorney and a former executioner. During one of Duerrenmatt's better dinners (six lavish courses), they play a game. The salesman, a very ordinary opportunist, is put on trial for the murder of his predecessor in the firm. The predecessor died of a heart attack, but actually the salesman could have been -- indeed was, as the trial progresses -- morally responsible. The old men are devotees of crime, for it is 'crime which makes justice possible.' In a mad drunken scene, they convince the salesman that 'he had killed because it was only natural for him to squeeze somebody else out.' ["What would you have done?" -- Hannah asks her judge.] ... they sentence him to death -- a sentence he finds eminently just. Then, as final turn of the screw, though Duerrenmatt has prepared us for the salesman's execution at the hands of the old men, the salesman hangs himself in expiation, much to the surprise of the old men."

Gore Vidal, "In the Shadow of the Scales: Friedrich Duerrenmatt," in Rocking the Boat (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1962), p. 187.

Duerrenmatt concludes (by way of Vidal) as does Mr. Schlink:

"There is no divine law but we disobey it at our peril. Put simply: we are responsible for our acts even though there is no God."

This is to discover that God is. Why assume a distinction between God and the logic of moral survival? The "metaphysics of morals" (Kant) and "social understanding of freedom" (Hegel) is a revelation of part of what we mean by God:

"If man is to survive in a non-human universe of which he is a trifling part, the idea of justice must be maintained, for without justice there is chaos, as Duerrenmatt shows most plainly in [his works.]"

Ibid.

It is fitting that fascists continue to deface this essay. For this essay is a defense of the exact opposite of what fascists believe. They may be expected to continue to seek to destroy this work and its author, with the assistance of government resources and technology in New Jersey. I will continue to resist such efforts. I will continue to write. The possibility of redemption and love preserves or rescues our humanity and elevates this film from the category of absolute tragedy to that of redemptive morality tale. George Steiner writes:

"Where consequence is strict, the tragic absolute solicits suicide. It does not admit of the rationality of therapy [or] discourse, be it philosophic or aesthetic. It does not look to pragmatic amelioration. Why write plays (paint pictures, compose symphonies) if perception entails a stringent nihilism. Only nothingness is acquitted of the fault, of the error of being ('nothingness' is obsessive in the text of King Lear; annulment is a pivot in Beckett's parables). ..."

"Absolute Tragedy," in No Passion Spent (London & New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 129.

Redemption is possible and (perhaps) achieved in Mr. Schlink's vision. This is a result of future-orientation, recognition, respect for everyone's suffering, allowance for speech, the power of words. Hannah's slow, heroic, mastery of her few written words is devastating evidence of Ms. Winslet's artistic genius. Genius is Ms. Winslet's unblinking willingness to stare Hannah's humanity (and thus, her own) in the face. Ms. Winslet does the opposite of what the German women in the movie do, all too easily. Ms. Winslet sits with Hannah at the defendant's table. I do too. This is without excusing anything this character may have done. We are all guilty. We are all redeemed.

Ms. Winslet's portrait of Hannah compares with a Velasquez portrait of his most "ordinary" servant, or a Rembrandt self-portrait that is reflected in a mirror -- a self-portrait painted by fading candle light symbolizing the vanishing life of the subject and of the viewer of the painting. In fact, Ms. Winslet's canvas must be a little of both, portrait of self and other.
Perhaps this is the deepest lesson to take from The Reader: Categories of self and other, "That" and "I," must be unified with recognition and love. Totalitarians will always seek to deny words and understanding to their victims. For this reason, I will continue to struggle against censorship, silencing, and denials of words to me along with others -- mostly women -- who have been denied so much more in life:

" ... aspects of the 'I' as subject of experience and agent, and aspects of the ways in which different 'I's form a 'We,' so establish a condition of the intelligibility of expressions of facts about the 'I,' together [affecting] what a full account of reality must comprise. Setting out those Kantian, Schopenhaurian and Wittgensteinian insights is a very difficult enterprise, and I make no claim to have carried it out. My remarks are advisedly gnomic. They merely set out the parameters for a complete and successful metaphysics of the kind that this [work] has been concerned with."

D.W. Hamlyn, "Persons and Personal Identity," in Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 218.

Kate Winslet and the character of "Hannah" will now become one for millions of people all over the world. These characters and this film -- as a single work of art -- will be one with you, the audience member, for the rest of your life. This is the only way that Michael, Hannah, Germany or you become free -- by loving. Loving allows persons to accept and unite with the suffering of others. "In the unity of the Holy Spirit ..."

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

New Jersey's Incompetence and Malice, Plus America's Crises.

December 12, 2008 at 2:21 P.M. After running scans earlier, I have just discovered that my updating feature is blocked again, only 3 files could be backed up, images cannot be posted at this blog or at my profile, essays may be defaced both here and at http://www.Critique@hotmail.com/ I will do my best to keep writing.

December 11, 2008 at 11:11 A.M. My updating feature of my security system was blocked, again, this morning. I will continue to struggle throughout the day to restore my system and run scans of my computer.

December 10, 2008 at 4:22 P.M. A massive attack on my computer system leaves me with a red notice indicating that "Browsing is Not Safe: Auto-Protect off." Updating and back-up are blocked, essays will be vandalized, especially Fidel Castro's "History Will Absolve Me." I will try to cope with these new attacks. If I do not write for more than 2 days, then it will not be voluntary. I will work on a new essay examining La Cosa Nostra in North Bergen, New Jersey.

December 8, 2008 at 2:32 P.M. Hours of cyberwarfare today makes it very difficult to do new work. I will continue to struggle. I am experiencing great difficulty in updating my security system and in backing up files. This will allow for new attacks against my writings, vandalism, defacements. I will do my best to defend against these attacks. I am still unable to post images at these blogs or at my profile. The total number of hits at these blogs and books is probably between 15,000 and 20,000 and are grossly under-reported at both sites. I will try to upload my book, again, to see whether it will be distributed. I do not know whether my books are still available or have been vandalized also.

December 7, 2008 at 2:00 P.M. At about 1:20 P.M. I was blocked from accessing my sites, updating my security feature is blocked again. I am running scans to try to regain my ability to update my system. I am unable to regain access to Critique. This usually means that essays are being vandalized. I will continue to struggle throughout the day. Perhaps someone has "hung-up" on both myself and President-elect Obama, to say nothing of the Constitution. Metaphor?

December 6, 2008 at 11:01 A.M. I made it back to Critique just long enough to change the image in my profile. The obstructions and harassment make it impossible to do any writing at that site today. This usually means that "errors" or defacements of copyright protected material is taking place. The First Amendment is a joke to these New Jersey politicians. Public criminality is also "not a problem."

This experience is not unusual (for me), despite the criminality of conspiracies to violate civil rights, notably those involving the use of governmental resources and technology. Dirty New Jersey cops are usually in the pay of organized crime in the Trenton "area." Is Richard J. Codey filling-in for Corzine this weekend? If so, then it would explain a lot. Perhaps there is news from the Menendez grand jury? Is it true that both men hung up on President-elect Barack Obama? It wouldn't surprise me. I will continue to struggle.

December 6, 2008 at 10:12 A.M. I was just obstructed in efforts to reach my MSN group. I will continue to struggle to reach that site.

December 4, 2008 at 7:49 A.M. I do not owe any person -- including any former employee -- money, not in any amount, not for any reason. Any "fees" (of any kind) suddenly claimed by New Jersey are greatly exceeded by sums owed to me. For example, sums owed in compensation for theft and other crimes committed against me, including violations of civil rights prohibited by federal law. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture," "What is it like to be tortured?," "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")

A multi-decade effort to bring about a targeted victim's financial ruin is not excused by pointing to bills the person could not pay, initially, as a result of the fruition of these state efforts at personal destruction. Government targeting of individual victims for secret financial warfare and theft, daily criminal violations of rights -- like suppression of free speech -- along with the cover ups of such state actions is profoundly offensive in a Constitutional Republic. I am presenting my bill for amounts due.

Dissidents are not criminals in a free society. Mr. Rabner, how do you live with yourself?

December 3, 2008 at 1:22 P.M. I am unable to back up files due to interference with my security system, evidently these attacks emanate from New Jersey government computers. December 1, 2008 at 1:58 P.M. call received from: 732-649-6123; November 30, 2008 at 2:12 P.M. call(s) received from: 866-800-2202. I expect that this obstruction will allow for further attacks on my writings, defacements and vandalisms of numerous texts. I will do my best to make corrections, once I determine how many essays have been damaged. I will continue to run scans throughout the day.

December 3, 2008 at 10:02 A.M. I was previously prevented from accessing the group, then new "errors" were inserted in this essay and (perhaps) others also. I will struggle to make all necessary corrections.

December 2, 2008 at 5:20 P.M. "Errors" were inserted and corrected in this previously posted essay.

Anand Giridharadas, "The Special Sting of Personal Terrorism," in The New York Times, November 30, 2008, at p. 7 ("Week in Review").
James Gleick, "How to Publish Without Perishing," in The New York Times, November 30, 2008, at p. 10 ("Week in Review"). (See "How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")
Editorial, "Bailing Away," in The New York Times, November 30, 2008, at p. 7 ("Sunday Opinion").
Editorial, "Expert or Shill?," in The New York Times, November 30, 2008, at p. 7 ("Sunday Opinion").
Diana B. Henriques, "Bailout Monitor Sees Lack of a Coherent Plan," in The New York Times, December 2, 2008, at p. B1.


"The federal government is going broke in an attempt to avert the type of calamitous financial collapse that led to the Great Depression. No one would fault the objective, but throwing money at the problem is becoming an end in itself."

"Last week alone, while everyone was still arguing [about] whether a $25 BILLION loan to the Big Three carmakers would be money down a sinkhole, the government committed more than $1 TRILLION to prop up Citigroup and to try to spur lending to consumers and home buyers. Moves to stabilize the system this year have put Americans in harm's way from possible losses on nearly $8 TRILLION pledged in loans, guarantees and investments to financial firms and the crisis is far from over."

How long do you think that the American economy can withstand this loss of wealth and crisis of confidence in the world? When we reach the point at which Citibank is going under, what's left?

"... good crisis management also requires that the calamity of the moment not be allowed to overwhelm good governing. Unfortunately, that is not the case now."

"Good" of you to notice how "good" government requires us to be "good." Nancy Dalva? The New York Times?

"Even, as the rescue tab rises, taxpayers are not being adequately informed or protected. There is as yet no effort to deal effectively with the underlying causes of the problem, especially mass mortgage defaults that feed bank losses. And officials seem to think urgency to act absolves them from considering the longer-term implications of the actions they take."

A follow-up piece in "Business Day," in the next day's Time's, concerns Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren. Ms. Warren has been appointed to "monitor" the "bailout plan." In New Jersey, this appointment would require that Professor Warren set aside a "cut" for politicians and crooked judges -- often the same people -- ensuring that everybody is adequately "greased." Evidently, this "bailout plan" will limit the amounts that may be stolen. Nevertheless, the effort may fail without a proper assessment of the underlying causes of the crisis.

" ... 'You can't just say, Credit isn't moving through the system,' she said in her first public comments since being named to the panel, 'You have to ask why.' ... "

Professor Warren is a radical thinker:

"If the answer is that banks do not have money to lend, it would make sense to push capital into their hands, as the Treasury Department has been doing over the last two months, she continued. But if the answer is that their potential borrowers are getting less creditworthy with each passing day, 'pouring money into banks isn't going to fix that problem,' she said."

No one is willing to address the real causes and reasons for this situation. The mortgage crisis is only a symptom. In the same section of the newspaper there is an article examining the dangers concerning the continued existence of books as central delivery systems of information during the twenty-first century. To my knowledge, no one identifies a connection between these developments.

Well, fewer "good" books being read by policy makers and a corresponding decline in the analytical faculties cultivated among the "educated sectors" of the economy (I think that means "smart people"), coupled with out-of-control greed and the quest for material satisfactions above all other considerations, is bound to result in something like the current nightmare. We will experience and have already seen a loss of the sense of community and abandonment of logical allocations of resources or "intelligent prioritizing." I hate this economic jargon. People will know less stuff and make more stupid decisions because they'll read fewer good books in the future. O.K.?

The one common characteristic that I have found among brutal, fascistic, shockingly ignorant Cubanazos in New Jersey is impatience with ideas or complexity of any kind. Worse, hostility and disdain for those who find it necessary to think and communicate. You cannot solve all problems by beating up or killing someone you happen to disagree with about an issue. (See "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")

Ms. Pelosi said: "We can't do both climate control and financial crisis-management." We will have to do both or the devastating financial consequences and threat to life on this planet will be much more lethal than anything that can be imagined at this point in history. Yes, that means we may lose "a lot of money," along with our lives. Global warming is not a problem that can be set aside. Neither is the looming depression. Depression is exactly what we are dealing with in this crisis.

Despite these headlines, a stampede at Wal-Mart (of all places) resulted in several deaths on the day after Thanksgiving. Greed leading to a rush to make purchases at %30 off regular prices made the trampling to death of pregnant women standing in the way of the store's entrance a matter of mild concern and little effort of recognition after the fact. Police say arrests are unlikely. Nobody cares. I trust that consumers will enjoy their purchases that were clearly made in the spirit of the holiday season.

This is a sick society, a society poisoned by its own wealth and success for much of the twentieth century that is now abandoning -- in practice, if not in rhetoric -- its magnificent humanistic values. The election of Barack Obama may initiate a movement of return and reflection on who we are, as a people, and what we hope to continue to be for ourselves and the world. Obama's presidency is a source of hope. Plus, Obama's got a great Secretary of State. (See "I am 'For' Senator Clinton and Against Anti-Americanism.")

We are more selfish and much more stupid than we were even a generation ago. Politicians cannot say this. America is losing its sense of community and mutuality of obligation as well as sacrifice. Illiteracy among the "educated" population is increasing at astronomical rates. Many of my worst experiences in life, I believe, are at least partly attributable to unforgivable ignorance and stupidity among persons in positions of authority in New Jersey, like Debbie Poritz and Stuart Rabner.

I am amazed at the items of common knowledge that people do not know. Graduates of elite universities ask me to explain things that seem basic to me. How do people in other countries react to such experiences? These same persons asking me to explain things will then treat me like a servant or idiot. Do others around the world have the same experience?

Added to this sad spectacle is the example of two fairly typical American psychiatrists and/or psychologists getting paid by drug companies to promote pharmacological "treatments" that were less than beneficial to victims. Furthermore, these shrinks, allegedly, were aware of problems with the drugs they prescribed and didn't care. Often psychiatrists are in league with government agencies concerned to circumvent their victims' Constitutional and human rights, through the use of hypnosis and drugging, acting secretly to harm persons, deliberately, for purposes of "therapists'" personal gain or abusive experimentation. One such monster said to me, "We can learn from you."

"More evidence has emerged of appalling conflicts of interest that throw into doubt the advice rendered and the research performed by two prominent psychiatrists who have received susbtantial funding from the pharmaceutical industry. The revelations prove, once again, the need for universities and professional societies to crack down on conflicts of interest, and for Congress to pass legislation that will bring hidden conflicts into the open." (See "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "Jaynee LaVecchia and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

Where are those reports and records of torture sessions, Terry? OAE? What does that "E" stand for, John? Did you or Debbie Poritz enter into "sexual contact" with Marilyn, Terry? Or was it only Diana? Who was paying you or Diana for your questionable services, Terry? How many other victims are there in the Garden State? How many victims have been informed of Terry's secret activities having an effect on their lives? How many such victims are in the state's prisons? Did you have to "take care" of Stuart Rabner? Peter Harvey? Anne Milgram? What was (or is) their "cut"? Were you sharing information concerning your patients-victims with prosecutors' offices, Terry? Which New Jersey prosecutors were receiving information extracted from persons under hypnosis without their permission or knowledge?

"Dr. Biederman's work and reputation have helped fuel a huge increase in the use of powerful, risky and expensive antipsychotic medicines in young people, an upsurge that brought a warning recently from a federally appointed panel of experts. Now it is hard to know whether he has been speaking as an independent expert or paid shill for the drug industry."

How long do you plan to hide from me, Terry? Have you no sense of the despicable nature of your actions and total betrayal of your oath as a physician, Terry? Does New Jersey speak to me of "ethics"? This is to assume that "physician" is what you were or are, as opposed to a paid state torturer and informer, which seems to be what you continue to be. How does a Jew become Mengele, Terry? The shocking ignorance of a person like Terry Tuchin would have been impossible even fifty years ago. Terry asked me: "Who is Kierkegaard?" This man is a forensic psychiatrist in New Jersey? Even for an informer and torturer, stupidity will be a problem.

"There is a new kind of educated person," Doris Lessing writes, "who may be at school or university for twenty, twenty-five years, who knows everything about a specialty, computers, the law, economics, politics, but knows about nothing else, no literature, art, history, and may be heard enquiring, 'But what was the Renaissance?' 'What was the French Revolution?' ..."

Time Bites: Views and Reviews (New York & London: Harper, 2004), p. 69.

See "Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Jaynee LaVecchia and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey." Why has Jaynee LaVecchia not yet resigned from the New Jersey judicial bench? (See again: "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.") Appearance of impropriety, bringing discredit to the judiciary, calling into disrepute the legal process and outcomes of cases -- all are sufficient for resignation from the bench.

What happened to the $300 MILLION that vanished in the HIP deal?


"Once upon a time, and it seems a long time ago, there was a respected figure. The Educated Person. He -- it was usually he, but then increasingly often she -- was educated in a way that differed little from country to country -- I am of course talking about Europe -- but was different from what we know now. William Hazlitt, our great essayist, went to a school, in the late eighteenth century, whose curriculum was four times more comprehensive than that of a comparable school now, a mix of the bases of language, law, art, religion, mathematics. It was taken for granted that this already dense and deep education was only one aspect of development, for the pupils were expected to read, and they did." (Lessing, p. 68.)

All of this is mostly gone today -- and it shows. The slovenliness of our language and shallow thinking is reflected in our movie choices and in declining reading levels as other nations surpass American educational achievements. There is still time to act.

Will we heed the warning signs before it is too late? Let us hope so.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

New Jersey's Criminal Incompetence.

December 3, 2008 at 7:59 A.M. I was just obstructed and denied access to my MSN hotmail account, which continues to be "breached." I will struggle throughout the day to regain access to my sites and e-mail account. (See "How censorship works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")

Joel Geier, "Capitalism's Worst Crisis Since the 1930s," in International Socialist Review, November-December, 2008, at p. 10.
Ashley Smith, "Beyond the Surge in Iraq," in International Socialist Review, November-December, 2008, at p. 18.
Somini Segupta, "Terror Attacks Kill Scores in India: U.S. Hostages Reportedly Held in Hotel," in The New York Times, November 27, 2008, at p. A1. (Jewish Center attacked, Jewish hostages and victims.)
Somini Segupta & Keith Bradsher, "Indian Soldiers Seek Survivors of Terror Siege," in The New York Times, November 28, 2008, at p. A1.
Bob Ingle & Sandy McClure, The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption (New York: St. Martin's, 2008), entirety.

Mission Statement of New Jersey's Judiciary:

"We are an independent branch of government constitutionally ENTRUSTED with the fair and just resolution of disputes in order to preserve the rule of law and to protect the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States and this State."


November 26, 2008 at 10:36 A.M. Attempts to access the Internet have been frustrated by obstructions to my home page. I attribute this experience to some interference with my service provider emanating from New Jersey officials' actions, whether direct or indirect. This use of technology suggests the cooperation of corrupt government officials, most likely in the Garden State. Has Senator Bob, finally, been indicted? Not yet?

November 28, 2008 at 12:03 P.M. I am blocking:

http://bp.3.blogger.com/_55y4H355s40/RnktPU6D... (NJ?) Cubanazos for Menendez?

Such denials of access to communications -- like placing a hand over the oxygen mask of a man attached to an artificial breathing apparatus -- are not unprecedented in my life. This censorship does not surprise me. I do not believe that the short story that I intended to post has been lost or destroyed. I am pretty sure that I have managed to keep it safe from alteration. I will try once more to post that story when I regain access to my sites. I was unable to reach Critique until evening arrived. (See "What you will ..." at my MSN group, Critique.)

You are destroying the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, a document for which men and women are dying right now in several places in the world. I hope that those responsible for these crimes are not legal or elected officials in the U.S., nor law enforcement people. I am afraid that this is exactly what they are -- corrupt officials from the Garden State.

I suppose a comment is expected from me in response to these developments. I cannot begin to say what I feel at this point -- frustration, anger, mostly sadness and disappointment that this is what an American jurisdiction has become. Power to injure or inflict emotional suffering on others is not legitimated by being sanctioned through the inaction or incompetence of law enforcement. What this reveals and proves is all that I have been saying about the persons (and I use the word "persons" loosely) engaging in this course of criminal conduct for years.

You have no respect for persons. You do not understand what is a human being or rights to self-determination, freedom of speech, privacy, opinion and thought. Persons are rodent-like speciments to be interfered with and destroyed, then discarded, by monsters like Terry Tuchin or Diana Lisa Riccioli, and/or their "assistants." The only appropriate analogy is to Nazis -- Nazis like Dr. Mengele and bureaucrats like Adolf Eichman. Which one are you? ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

Are you a bystander to this atrocity? Do you believe that such despicable conduct will fail to leave traces on you? I don't. I think the harm that this attempt to suppress speech and freedom does to the moral culture of American society (as well as law) is irreparable. I will continue to speak and write of it, every day, for the rest of my life. I will continue to hold all of those cooperating with this horror accountable for their actions in the court of public opinion.

The Cuban issue is rhetoric or public relations fodder for what is really sadism. You enjoy hurting and trying to control people, illegally. You probably don't care about Cuba or the United States of America. I care about both countries. I would like to see suffering and poverty alleviated in both places, or anywhere for that matter. Whatever tragedy I suffer -- no matter how injured I may be by this grotesque injustice -- the U.S. Constitution is more damaged and so are you. You, Terry and Diana, are the perpetrators of this disgusting criminality, together with your enablers in New Jersey's tainted legal system. I will find a way to continue writing and demonstrating (with the cooperation of N.J. lawyers and judges) the idiocy and criminality of New Jersey's many corrupt lawyers and judges.

I cannot say whether Republicans or Democrats are more corrupt in New Jersey. It is a close competition. Whichever party and whoever has allowed for this censorship is my nominee for most corrupt political party in America. Persons are not going to be controlled for long through these techniques. You will create and fuel hatred by the use of these foul devices. That hatred will return to you and will damage the lives of idiots who cooperate with surreptitious efforts by N.J. government agencies to violate the rights of persons. How does a Jew become Mengele, Mr. Rabner? All it takes is to "cooperate" with Mengele to become what he is and will always be.

How long will it be before these techniques are used, primarily, against Jews? Do you think that this genie can be kept in the bottle? I don't. A number of societies and intelligence agencies are experimenting with interfering with and disrupting on-line publications and periodicals, like The New York Times which will not discuss -- not publicly, anyway -- the small taste they have had already of how easily their security can be breached and their "copy" altered. My experiences will not be unique. Those responsible for violating my rights must be stopped and punished now, even if they work for N.J.'s state government. I predicted several years ago a connection between Ossama bin Laden and Pakistan's intelligence services:

According to a new book, "The Search for Al Qaeda," by Bruce Riedel, an adviser on South Asia to Mr. Obama, Osama bin Laden worked with the Pakistani intelligence agency in the late 1980s to create Lashkar-e-Taiba as a jihadist group intended to challenge Indian rule in Kashmir. (Times, 11-28-08, p. 18.)

Al Qaeda has become the "Rockefeller Foundation" of international terrorism. You go to them as a torturer with a project: "I want to blow up the statue of liberty." You get funds and technical assistance with your project. Money for your relatives when you die is included and one ticket to paradise with 72 virgins included. Some of the money being doled out by Al Qaeda is stolen from "relief funds" that were sent to Pakistan from the U.S. to bribe Musharaff's Pakistani officials to cooperate with Bush's anti-terrorism efforts, allegedly, even though Bush and the Americans (not American movies and culture) are universally detested. Pakistan is in danger of becoming South Asia's New Jersey.

The United States is facing a series of terrible crises in the world and internally, within its domestic economy and culture. In a terrorist incident occurring in India, Americans and ALL Jews were singled out for harsh treatment. More such incidents threatening everyone of us are on the way. The state of our union is gravely threatened. We ignore these perils to our cost. The dangers are certainly visible to thoughtful persons everywhere in the world.

I hope and trust that many observers are aware of my tortures and experiences -- especially this morning -- after the events of last week. Given the opportunity to do so, I will speak of my experiences of torture and encounters with New Jersey's corrupt and inept public officials as well as judges for the rest of my life. There is no American state nor many countries that come close to New Jersey's moral putridness. How much is all of this torture costing the taxpayers? 1988 to 2008? How many daily intrusions into my system from N.J. computers? Censorship? Conspiracies to violate civil rights? Obstructions of justice? Where are those videos and torture records compiled by Terry Tuchin and pertaining to me?

The frustration which my torturers feel at the inability to prevail in arguments against me -- despite censorship and alterations of my texts, harassments and distractions -- will not be alleviated by this morning's cruelty. I cannot say how many essays have been defaced during the hours when I was unable to access my sites.

What the hacks at the OAE cannot forgive is that I am living proof of the lie that is their view of "inferior" others, like me. This lie is served and preserved by the minority bootlickers kept around for this purpose. That's you, John, and your rule book. (Happy Holidays!) You wanna talk to me about lies, secret criminality, cover-ups. Any time. Where are those reports "filed" by Terry Tuchin and/or Diana Lisa Riccioli? More Videos? What was Riccioli's "relationship" with Ms. Poritz? Were they "close"? Was Diana "supplying" sexual "introductions" to Poritz and/or "others" in Trenton? Is any judge or public official in New Jersey not on the take? (See "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")

I am right about the fundamental dignity of every human being. At some level, even the trolls at the OAE know this. Your disregard for me is also your disdain for the vast bulk of the population of your state and the planet. Racism is pervasive among N.J. lawyers and judges. Let us consider some facts from the most recent International Socialist Review:

"The U.S. government had a budget surplus under Clinton. But under Bush, with the tax cuts and war spending, the budgetary surplus disappeared, and the U.S. went from having a $250 billion government surplus in 2000-2001 to a $300 BILLION deficit in 2002. This stimulated the economy, but it meant that the United States became dependent on foreign capital, since the savings rate in this country had collapsed and was negative in the last years of this boom. Foreign capital, in particular from China, Japan, and the Middle East oil exporting countries" -- Gallipoli's "little brown people" -- "financed the American debt. ..."

What is the situation now?

" ... more than $7 TRILLION has been wiped off the U.S. stock market. Indeed, $1.1 TRILLION in a single day on October 15. As of mid-October, $27 TRILLION had been erased from the stock markets world-wide. [This was a ripple-effect of U.S. incompetence and greed!] Housing values in this country have already declined by $2.5 TRILLION; and bank write-offs are now at $600 to $700 BILLION and expected to be $1.4 TRILLION. ... "

Why should you care about these facts if you don't own stock? My neighbor's $83,000 pension savings over a lifetime was gone in a day. Do you have any idea what it takes for a working guy to save $83,000?

"Unemployment is already at 6.1 percent, and economists are predicting that next year it may rise to 8 or 9 percent. ... "

You will see small and medium sized businesses fail at a rate unprecedented since the great depression.

"The [real] rate of unemployment is 11 percent, if you count the 5 million 'discouraged' workers who have recently stopped looking for work. ... real wages have declined even before this recession has gotten under way. ..."

China and Japan are unlikely to continue financing America's trade deficit at $700-800 BILLION, even $1 TRILLION in a few years. America faces the real possibility of falling into the status of a second-rate power in the second half of the twenty-first century. One year to 18 months from today, we may see unemployment at 15 to 20 percent and crime rates soaring well beyond our capacity to incarcerate felons. Mounting attacks against American symbols may begin to focus on Hollywood targets as well as political symbols of the nation.

I am sure that the new Obama Administration will ponder these dilemmas and work for solutions. It is encouraging that Senator Clinton will become our new Secretary of State. We need our best in Washington, D.C., at this difficult moment, serving in an administration that does not regard intelligence as a form of unacceptable "elitism."

"Bail outs" will not help industries with structural and irremovable problems, like the U.S. automobile industry. The answer is not to torture "dissidents" and so-called "trouble makers" who refuse to "adjust." At some point, you will have to face me. America will have to deal with these realities.

I do a 4 mile trot every day or every other day. I made a note of the parked vehicles I saw last time I walked in the city -- even in blue collar neighborhoods or by the projects close to Columbia University -- almost all of the American vehicles were gas guzzling SUVs or vans. This disdain for the climate and waste of resources is obscene in a society that has never really encountered the idea of limitations of desire or restraints on "upward mobility." History is forcing America to come face-to-face with its own contradictions.

Why is all of this happening now and how is it connected to my experiences? Stupidity. Ignorance. Racism. Disdain for all that is unfamiliar and disregard for the dignity of persons among powerful Americans in New Jersey explain the tortures that you are witnessing. You cannot beat up ideas. You do not establish your correctness or "superiority" over a person by hurting him, secretly, then stealing from him, enslaving, violating, or otherwise seeking what you can never achieve -- which is control of him or theft of his intellectual ability. You may destroy a mind, but you cannot take possession of it. Nationally and globally, America is discovering the errors associated with our embrace of stupidity and disregard for "the little brown people." (See again: "Maurice J.Gallipoli and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")

N.J. is $36 BILLION in the hole; pension funds have entered the twilight zone ($500 MILLION short); the state leads the nation in legal corruption and incompetence. You may be better off with corrupt judges than incompetent ones. At least, with a corrupt judge it is a matter of how much you will have to pay. With a moron on the bench anything can happen. Debbie? Stuart? Tolentino? Baber? The list of idiotic New Jersey judges is, seemingly, endless. The list of corrupt judges is probably even longer.

OAE hacks will probably never read as much as I have read already. That's not saying much about me. No matter how much you hurt me, this will remain true. You will not convince me at this point in my life that "my book is shit and that I am shit." (Right, Diana?) I will take great pleasure in saying all of this to the world. My intelligence and articulateness, such as they are, are unforgivable offenses for bigots in the Garden State. What is the relationship between New Jersey and "Publish America"? Lulu?

You cannot control people in these ways, not in New Jersey or Washington, D.C. You will be hurt because you have hurt others, like me, because in a twisted way, you delight in hurting people whom you secretly envy or desire. Diana? Terry? Stuart? N.J. government needs cooperation and assistance, so does America. Indiscriminate torture of victims is not how you will receive cooperation or assistance from anyone. This is how you make lasting enemies by persuading a victim's family members (the little brown people) to inform against him, for example, and by destroying familial relations and friendships as a result, also by your hypocrisy and malice. That's you, Terry.

Do you speak to me of "ethics," Stuart Rabner? How much did you "get out" of the Prisco deal, Stu? How much was stolen from my office? Did Debbie get a cut of that loot? Was Poritz a partner in the scams to milk insurance companies and state government by Tuchin? Who was paying Tuchin, secretly or not? And for what service was he paid? How much did you get for torturing me, Terry? Did you get a piece of any "fees" from stolen prospective clients? Diana? What lawyers were benefitting from these stolen clients? What role did "Bob" play in this illegality, if any? How's "Gloria," Bob?

By now, you probably have some dim inkling that what I have been saying is true or at least philosophically sound -- to the extent that you understand it, which is probably not much. You are hurting other people who do understand what I am saying and whose intellectual work may be enriched by my humble suggestions and efforts. This is part of what is wrong at the moment in America. Traditionally, the society has been open to intellectual talent. It is increasingly closed to people (like me), who are destroyed when they are most needed. This is not wise.

I will run scans. I will attempt to restart my computer. I will try again. I will search for public computers. I will continue to write.

November 26, 2008 at 12:11 P.M. As of this time, there is still no ability to get on-line. This is because a kind of cork seems to have been placed over my Internet connection. Calling for assistance will probably be useless, since this is how the information necessary for this interference was no doubt obtained in the first place, that is, I am a victim of "theft of information" -- among other things.

I am not the only victim. My family members, including my child, may also be affected in their eforts to make use of on-line resources and information. This will be a matter of indifference to the protected criminals in New Jersey responsible for this censorship and torture. Democrat control of the U.S. Justice Department may prevent me from regaining access to my sites or receiving justice. However, I will continue to struggle. I want to make sure that I keep readers well informed about the doings of New Jersey's public officials -- and no, I do not and will not drink alcohol this holiday season. Many more examinations of New Jersey's "legalized" criminality are on the way. If two days pass with no change at my sites, then you may assume that censorship has prevailed in America.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Is Union City, N.J. Meyer Lansky's Whorehouse?

March 4, 2009 at 3:54 P.M. Notices indicate that MSN has "closed." Even at my own expense my second book will not be sent to on-line booksellers. The true number of visitors to all of my sites is not known. Perhaps 20,000?

November 28, 2008 at 12:13 P.M. I was just obstructed in efforts to reach my e-mail at hotmail, after a day of interference with my Internet service provider. More cyberattacks and cyberstalking must be expected, unfortunately. I will struggle to continue writing. I will do my best to correct "errors' inserted during the hours when my access to my sites is obstructed. Happy Holidays!

November 25, 2008 at 11:20 A.M. An essay focusing on North Bergen, New Jersey (based on objective sources) is coming up, together with an essay on "The Case of Kelly Anne Michaels." This is my response to the harassment, defacements, vandalism of several essays this past weekend. I was just denied access to my blogs and prevented from reading my e-mails at hotmail. I will try throughout the day to regain access to MSN. Essays will be defaced and altered, then corrected by me. I will continue to write.

November 23, 2008 at 4:17 P.M. A wave of attacks against my computer has resulted in damaging my security system, again, preventing me from applying updates, allowing for "errors" to be inserted in my writings. The goal is to maximize psychological harm through frustration, anxiety, stress. Ideally, this can be combined with limitations upon communicative opportunities, silencing, censorship aimed at inducing collapse in a person who has experienced much more severe forms of psychological torture.

I will continue to write, focusing on criminality and corruption in the history of North Bergen. I will also write a future essay examining the case of Kelly Ann Michaels. Regrettably, this means that we can expect additional sabotage and vandalizing of my writings during the days and weeks ahead. Profiles of judges and their sex lives in New Jersey are also coming up.

November 19, 2008 at 12:25 P.M. My security system cannot be updated, back up leaves me with a message that says Internet connections are not available. Interference with my cable service this morning left me with a blank t.v. screen. Phone calls from 800 numbers cannot be far behind, along with more vandalism of these writings. This morning at Critique, I blocked:

http://89.28.13.200/in.htm?s=sb...
http://clicksoverview.com/soft.php?aid=014701&d=...
http://antivirusdefense.com/2009/en/freescan.d....

November 18, 2008 at 4:05 P.M. Another attack on my security system from the corridors of power in New Jersey leaves me unable to "update" my security system. I am running a full scan of my system, once again, for the third time today. I will continue to try during the next twenty-four hours to update my system and fight off these attacks, also to correct any "errors" inserted in essays during this period.

Perhaps these renewed attacks are associated with the departure of Mr. Christie from the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey. Any Democrat appointed to that office may be unable to overcome the political pressures from Trenton's Democrat Machine to prosecute political corruption in the Garden State. I hope not. I will continue to struggle.

November 18, 2008 at 1:40 P.M. A new attack on my computer prevented me from accessing my hotmail and answering e-mail. Essays at Critique may have been vandalized. Phone calls received: November 17, 2008 at 11:18 A.M. from (305) 836-7371 (Florida?); November 18, 2008 at 10:36 A.M. from 866-435-5140; at 11:06 A.M. from 062-240-7528; at 12:36 P.M. from 866-435-5140.

November 17, 2008 at 10:10 A.M. I am prevented from reaching my MSN group. I am afraid that "errors" have been and will continue to be inserted in my writings. Additional hacking into my computer has taken place. I will struggle to reach my sites. I cannot access my hotmail account. Images cannot be posted at blogger. My book still will not be sent to on-line booksellers. (See "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")

To speak of the "purposes" of the first amendment's protections of speech, press, assembly, petition, and (by implication) association, is to risk begging the central question posed by the Constitution's most majestic guarantee: is the freedom of speech to be regarded only as a means to some further end -- like successful self-government, or social stability, or (somewhat less instrumentally) the discovery and dissemination of truth -- or is freedom of speech in part also an end in itself, an expression of the sort of society we wish to become and the sort of persons we wish to be? No adequate conception of so basic an element of our fundamental law, it will be argued here, can be developed in purely instrumental or purposive terms.

Laurence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law (New York: Foundation Press, 1988), p. 785.

Is freedom of speech in the United States of America a lie? (See "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

November 15, 2008 at 2:25 P.M. I still experience many difficulties in efforts to reach hotmail. I was just prevented from accessing my MSN group. Any essays defaced today will be repaired as soon as I am able to regain access to my sites. I will continue to struggle.

November 14, 2008 at 9:45 A.M. I have been unable to reach my MSN group. I will continue to struggle against obstructions and hackers to reach Critique and my e-mail account. I will run scans throughout the day.

Bob Ingle & Sandy McClure, The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption (New York: St. Martin's, 2008), entirety.
David Barboza, "Former President of Taiwan Is Detained in a Corruption Inquiry," in The New York Times, November 12, 2008, at p. A5.
Greg Bean, "Cabinet Position for Corzine Would be a Huge Disaster," Tri-Town News, November 13, 2008, http://www.gmnews.com/news/2008/1113/Greg_Bean/
"Bryant Corruption Trial in New Jersey," http;//www.UPI.com/Top_News/2008/10/30/Bryant_Political_Corruption_Trial_Resumes/UPI-72791226398792/

After posting this essay there will be a wave of attacks against my computer and further defacements of Internet writings, obstructions of access to my sites, vandalisms of my books or blogs. If there is no new post for two days or more, then you may be sure that this silence will not be voluntary. Several of my essays were vandalized and corrected, again, recently. As of 10:15 A.M. on November 13, 2008, I am unable to reach my MSN group -- which may or may not continue to exist after February, 2009. No images can be posted at this blog, where obstructions and defacements are also common. I will continue to struggle. Please note that it is a federal crime to violate or conspire to violate civil rights, including First Amendment rights, especially where any form of direct or indirect state action is involved.

Union City, New Jersey is a territory with a colorful history of mafia activity and a thriving Cuban-American community. It is a place where the Cuban branch of the mob has always had a home. Perhaps Union City is a more corrupt territory than anything to be found in Florida. Gambling was an accepted part of everyday life. Payoffs to local officials were discussed as the norm by citizens enjoying a pleasant repast at the Union City Cafeteria. Various corrupt activities and secret partnerships between local police officials and crooks were open secrets. As one old timer explained, "even the rulers are crooked in this town." West New York is just as bad or worse. North Bergen is to the Jersey Mafia what Palermo is to Italy's organized crime families.

Proximity to New York made Union City a tax free zone for the mafia. La Bolita (Cuban numbers racket) operated undisturbed for a 10% cut paid to city hall, allegedly; cocaine importers had to remember a former local police chief and all would be well, also allegedly; Municipal Court matters were "fixable," along with prostitution complaints. In the old days, Judge Joe Falbo would take care of things for the Mayor's people (Bob Menendez in the go-go eighties), allegedly, since good old Joe liked brown paper lunch bags with cash in them instead of lunch. Falbo would get his own lunch.

"You gotta stay away from those guys in Trenton!" Good old Joe would say, as he rose from his lunch, leaving the tab for his meal to take care of itself since the judge was a big believer that "the Lord will provide."

Agustin Sanchez, a later town judge explained: "I'm only looking for the pension benefits and medical insurance." Mr. Sanchez was highly accomodating to the local powers-that-be, even in the midst of trials, regardless of the evidence in cases and said: "Why make trouble?" I have my doubts about whether Sanchez had much or any trial experience before going on the bench. However, Sanchez (like the guys in North Bergen, which was and is as bad or worse than Union City) had plenty of experience in making political contributions.

How much did you pay for the judgeship? Was it really $15,000, like 'people' said, Agustin? You wuz overcharged. Dem guys ... Geez. Try a chicharron.

"The grandaddy of New Jersey bosses was Frank 'I am the Law' Hague, who ruled in Jersey City, [and "spotted" his man in Union City] across the harbor from Manhattan, from 1917 to 1947. He was known for doing whatever it took to get his way, and the joke was the governor had on his desk a direct line to Hague." (Ingle & McClure, p. 74.)

Greetings from Democrat Senator Robert "You've-got-a-friend-in-Bob" Menendez! These days Corzine's got a direct line to "Big Pappa" Menendez. Is Menendez really "overly sensitive to criticism"? Don't forget to invite the babe over to your swinging pad in Miami Beach, Bob. Have you seen Shaft? Is that place in your name, Bob?

"In 1946, Hague backed the late William V. Musto for the state assembly, where he 'served' for nineteen years, followed by seventeen years in the state senate. Among the people Musto mentored were DONALD SCARINSCI, a lawyer and a Democrat leader who served as his aide for more than three years, and U.S. Senator ROBERT ['BobbyM'] MENENDEZ, who broke with him after a federal grand jury indicted Musto for racketeering, extortion, and fraud. Menendez testified against Musto, who was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison in 1982." (Ingle & McClure, p. 74.)

The way people told it is that Menendez was the opposite of a reformer. Menendez was a Musto man who wanted to avoid getting indicted himself (school board budget, Bob?) and saw an opportunity to screw over an old pal while rising to prominence. There was some question concerning whether Menendez helped set up Musto, then kept Musto's crew for his own take over of the "family business," allegedly. Certainly, things were just as crooked (if not more so) under Menendez and old cronie, the late Bruce Walter.

I liked Bruce Walter, who was slick but fair. "These guys take the money," a client complained, "then nothing happens. At least, Walter made things happen after he got your money."

If there were a sudden vacancy in West New York or Union City, why not Mrs. Cuningham for Congress? Or Donald M. Payne for the Senate? Hudson County could do much better than it is doing now.

I never knew Menendez well enough to form an opinion of his character one way or the other. Fine by me. Most people said Menendez was not a guy you could know or want to know, but that he was a bad "behind-the-back-enemy." (See "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" also "More Problems for Menendez -- Tapes!" and "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")

Anything from the Grand Jury, Bobby? What, they don't teach you this in law school? Hey, where you been? ... Huh? Disneyworld? Harvard Law School? Same thing.

"... Deborah Howlett of the Star Ledger interviewed LIBERO MAROTTA, who said he had known Menendez since he was a high school senior: 'I've read some of (Menendez's) comments about being a reformer, and it turns my stomach ... he's always been a Bill Musto guy.' The New York Times quoted Menendez opponent Bob Haney as saying Menendez worked his way through the machine and then took it over. And Tom Moran, columnist for the Star Ledger wrote, 'Menendez is the boss of Hudson County which is ground zero for the state's corruption problems.' ..." (Ingle & McClure, pp. 74-75.)

Menendez, allegedly, established friendships with Cuban mafia figures in Florida and New Jersey, also with anti-Castro groups in both states that were made up of many of the same people. Such organizations also included ordinary citizens with a genuine concern about Cuban-American relations. The anti-Castro "crusade" was used as an issue by politicians who could exploit people's fantasies of a return to a pre-Castro paradise -- something which has nothing to do with one's limited enthusiasm for Fidel Castro -- in order to get people's money for campaigns, then forget Cuba and the U.S. for another four years, as decisions were made by the boys at "Helmer's" in Hoboken about spending all that loot on themselves.

What is the result? Union City and the entire state of New Jersey is a DISGUSTING example of inept and corrupt government, sold-out judiciary by goons and goof balls, where a former indicted Hudson County Executive -- who did time -- taped his cronies making nefarious deals, also explaining the nearly 200 officials, hangers-on, and others indicted or facing federal charges in New Jersey. Government services are a joke. Violations of civil rights, like beatings and murder at the county jail, are routine. No wonder these Constitutional violations take place publicly and nothing happens:

"The state has lost over a quarter of a million [250,000] jobs [4,000 to 8,000 jobs will be lost over the next 4 years] and is looking at a $4 BILLION revenue shortfall next year. [Debt is $36 BILLION.] It's had huge deficits and shortfalls each year that [Corzine] has been in office." (Bean, 11-13-08.)

Do you really want to send $4 BILLION to New Jersey? Mr. Biden, keep an eye on these guys.

Try the tostones, Bobby. Help yourself -- you're good at that. Courts and judge selection procedures have been contaminated by this appalling criminality. Judges are incompetent or stupid minor criminals who are too often controlled by bosses. Legal ethics is a weapon to use against outsiders to the club, usually in the hands of those without ethics of any kind, allegedly, including the likes of NEIL M. COHEN and DE COTIIS, SCARINSCI and many others, while a man like Mr. Marotta -- who is a lawyers' lawyer and whose ethics are beyond reproach -- is ignored by the system. Maybe they don't like Italians. The OAE is a retirement home for minor criminals and bag men of the county machines or lawyers who can't hack it in private practice.

Stuart Rabner's continuing apathy and lethargy -- some say cowardice -- is shocking and disgraceful. When do I get those reports and videos, Stuart? Obstruction of justice at the OAE? Is the OAE "ethical"? We'll pretend that nothing happened ain't gonna do it, Stu. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be tortured?" then "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.") Badda-bing, badda-boom!

In the newspaper accounts of the arrest of the former President of Taiwan one can only note the contrast between Hong Kong, after the Chinese take-over as a thriving example of efficient and effective government in "China's Manhattan," as compared with this New Jersey-like spectacle in Taiwan. At least, Taiwan actually arrested this guy and is charging him. New Jersey's law enforcement mechanisms are weapons against opponents of this corruption and criminality that is used to protect -- yes, PROTECT -- targets of federal investigations. (See "George E. Norcross, III is the Boss of New Jersey's Corrupt Politics" and "George E. Norcross, III and Political Corruption in New Jersey.")

How many attacks against my computer today? I am, shockingly, unable to reach my MSN group today. This is not the kind of government desired or envied by today's young Cubans. This New Jersey so-called "court system" and politics offers the world only a cautionary tale of what we must avoid in America that others also must avoid in their own societies -- whether in Latin America or elsewhere.

As (there is no other word for it) a tortured dissident, I will continue to struggle against this nightmare. I urge you to do the same in your community. Perhaps I will be able to post essays later at Critique. I will try every day to do so.










Monday, November 3, 2008

A Surprising Message From a Friend!

November 5, 2008 at 12:16 P.M. (computer clock) efforts to reach my hotmail account are unsuccessful, but I did get to Critique. I will keep trying to reach my e-mail. Any delays in responding are due to the usual harassments from New Jersey. Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama!

November 4, 2008 at 4:29 P.M. Attempts to back-up files left me with a message indicating that "no Internet connection was available and files could not be backed up." This usually means that essays are being vandalized or other hacks in my computer are taking place. I will try, again, to back-up files, then I will try to discover which files have been damaged in order to repair the harm done.

November 4, 2008 at 11:09 A.M. After casting my vote, I struggled through the boggy marsh of cyberharassment to post revisions at Critique. New Jersey censorship and obstructions make writing very difficult. As a result, it is impossible to make progress on a short story that I am writing or anything else. However, I will continue to write. I hope. My friend's letter below was a little odd since I remember his early support for Barack Obama.

November 3, 2008 at 3:44 P.M. I have spent about a half hour trying to post the essay on Bernard Williams at Critique. This essay has been posted five or six times (so far), then "errors" are inserted in the text. I correct them. The same "errors" are then reinserted to maximize frustration and psychological harm. ("What is it like to be tortured?")

This process has continued indefinitely -- for years now -- with predictable effects and in connection with many writings. I was finally able to post the revisions at approximately 4:45 P.M. Calls received on November 3, 2008 at 3:55 P.M. from (201) 648-0406. I wonder who that could be? Senator McCain? Senator Obama? Senator Clinton? Probably just a "friend."

I will do my best to return to my MSN group -- which may or may not be closing in February, 2009 -- and I will re-post this Williams essay. Regrettably, the process may have to be repeated, added to the harassments of simply reaching the site. I will do my best to continue writing and posting essays on-line. I know that there are people who delight in cruelty, who enjoy hurting others, preferably from behind the back and only when victims are less powerful than themselves. I am more horrified to discover the many bystanders whose inaction makes cruelty possible. The item below seems to have caused great difficulties because of the attached link. I wonder how that could be true?


From: poskonig@hotmail.com
To: gilligan2_@hotmail.com
Subject: Hi Juan!Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 23:36:26 +0000

Hi Juan!

Even though it has been a while since we've met, I've been keeping up with your outstanding and always enjoyable essays at Critique on MSN groups. However, it looks like the MSN Groups service will close down in February 2009. Any idea where you will be moving to next?

I'm sorry that you've been having computer trouble. If it is any consolation, I can read your essays fine-- there is not a single one that's defaced, so the problem must be on your machine. I'm going through some computer issues myself-- my system registry is messed up, though I'm dragging my feet about wiping everything out and starting fresh. It would be fun to believe it is Daley, Obama, Farrakhan, Blagojevich, Tony Rezko, Jesse Jackson, and the rest Democrats here in Chicago just messing with me, but their bad behavior dramatically exceeds the nonsense in New Jersey-- they do what they do here *in the open* with impunity. Now we'll soon get a chance to see them in action at the federal level!

Anyway, what have I been up to? I finished my Bachelor's in Physics in 2006, and since then, I've been working in an office, doing meaningless paperwork. Right now I'm doing self-study to switch over to software design, but that's about 6-18mo off. I still keep up with philosophy, writing synopses at http://jhbowden.wordpress.com/. I have many serious essays I want to eventually write, along with a book (Analysis, Synthesis, and Synopsis) though all this will have to wait a year or two until I'm financially situated and more free time opens up.

Best regards,

Jason Bowden

When your life is on the go—take your life with you. Try Windows Mobile® today

Jason,

I am sorry to learn that MSN Groups is closing. I have no idea where I can move my group. I don't know about "Multiply." Perhaps this will be an option. I have detected some illegal tracking software, letters from "Publish America," and other objective empirical evidence of ... "shenanigans" directed at my sites, which doesn't surprise me. Read the stuff about New Jersey. Say hello to my old friends from the "neighborhood." I seriously doubt that anything comes close to government by the five families of the mafia, which is what exists in New Jersey -- together with thievery on a grand scale.

I was glad to hear from you. I hope that you don't mind if I post your communication. I will look forward to visiting your sites and reading your work. At the moment, I am searching for a publishing option and for alternative on-line venues to put my pots and pans, trinkets and art objects on display. I will sell my wares shamelessly. Any place where I can post images would be nice, disseminating my writings is quite difficult with all the harassment these days. I keep struggling to write and put the work out there, somehow.

Best of luck,

Juan

When your life is on the go—take your life with you. Try Windows Mobile

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Why Censorship Must Not Win.

November 3, 2008 at 10:01 A.M. (according to my computer). I was just barred from my group, then I lost my net access. I will struggle to reach my group throughout the day, then I will do my best to repair the harm done to essays during this interval. I am in receipt of a note, purporting to come from my friend Jason, advising me of MSN Groups "real" closing.

I am reminded also of a Supreme Court case in which a university chose to create a separate law school for one student, when the African-American candidate was granted admission to the law school by the U.S. Supremes, rather than to integrate their facility. MSN groups will close to shelter the Jersey Boys from criticism? Let us hope not. I will continue to search for an alternative site. Images still cannot be posted at blogger or with my profile. Perhaps it is time to reconsider First Amendment law. I am more nervous about unfettered Democrat party control of government. Let us hope for the best.

November 2, 2008 at 9:07 P.M. There was interference with my wireless access, depriving other users also of access. My service was just restored. I cannot say, at this point, how many writings have been damaged or how extensively. Essays examining New Jersey Municipal Law practice and profiles of old "friends" -- who are now illustrious members of the judiciary, some by very interesting means -- will be my response to these tactics. I can never be sure of regaining access to this blog or that my work will not be destroyed. I will continue to write.

November 1, 2008 at 12:44 A.M. "Skinny People Dressed in Black" was altered overnight. I made necessary corrections. I will continue to try to deal with the harassment efforts directed against my sites. Any news on the N.J. indictments front?

October 30, 2007 at 8:28 A.M. I was just obstructed in efforts to reach MSN. I will keep trying throughout the day.

October 29, 2008 at 8:25 A.M. Several attempts to reach my MSN group were prevented this morning. My computer was frozen, attacks will be constant today. This may mean that indictments are being handed down by the feds in New Jersey. I am afraid that this sort of cyberattack usually means that essays are being vandalized, altered, damaged. I will do my best to make repairs when I get back to Critique.

I continue to receive notices that MSN Groups is "closing" as of February 21, 2009. I will continue to struggle to write until that date, then I will transfer the essays at that site to another location where images can be posted. My image-posting feature at blogger is still disabled. I will run scans all day.

October 28, 2008 at 8:52 A.M. My computer security system was disabled yesterday for about one hour, presumably by hackers. As a result, any number of essays may have been altered, defaced, deleted or otherwise damaged. I was just prevented from accessing my group at MSN, which usually means that "errors" are being inserted in my writings. I will do my best to return to that site and make corrections. (See "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?")

Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London & New York: Verso, 2004), p. 83.
Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (New York: Laurel, 1984), p. 3.
Fidel Castro, "Letter to the Court of Appeals," in Revolutionary Struggle: The Selected Works of Fidel Castro (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1972), p. 163.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante, "Castroenteritis," in Mea Cuba (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994), pp. 279-329.

I am including a photograph of Fidel Castro and Castro's great friend, Richard M. Nixon (at MSN), because the photo of Che Guevara in dialogue with Jean Paul Sartre was blocked today at Critique. I am sure that use of the photo in a discussion of censorship will infuriate the "Cubanazos" even more than Guevara chatting with Sartre and De Beauvoir. I say this as an opponent of Castro's policies and, for that matter, of Nixon's policies. I will not be intimidated or "conditioned" into abandoning my opinions. I cannot be threatened or silenced by anyone.

I have spent several hours today -- October 19, 2008 -- being denied access to my own sites, blocked, obstructed, seeing my essays altered, defaced, vandalized and having to regain Internet access, painfully, only to be blocked once more. This deliberate effort to suppress speech, to inflict mental suffering through frustration, suffering inflicted on a person known to have endured nearly two decades of psychological torture -- including every form of secret violation of his human rights -- all to control a person, a human being who has committed no crime, can only take place with the cooperation of the authorities in an American jurisdiction. This is the saddest realization for me.

Whatever this is called and however it may be rationalized, it can only be described as sadism and evil. There is no form of cruelty that is for a person's -- or victim's -- "own good." Don't supply yourself (NJ) with any fig leafs. You hurt people because you like hurting people. You are not and never have been any kind of therapist or legal official. You are evil. You like being evil. You will also be punished for what you have done, eventually. I have to hope that this is true. You will not prevent me from speaking. You will not silence me. You will not stop me from criticizing a corrupt and inept legal system in New Jersey that makes this daily horror possible. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

I can not understand or forgive the guilty bystanders who allow this atrocity to continue, either out of fear or complicity with evil. You must share responsibility and guilt for these crimes -- even as the institutions of New Jersey must share in the stench of these foul deeds. I will continue to try to regain access to my sites. I don't seem able to remove an icon from my desk top labeled "Launch Internet Explorer 4." I do not know what this means, or if it means anything, but I will keep fighting. Maybe indictments are finally being handed down in this matter. It's about time. I cannot be certain whether MSN Groups is "closing" in February, 2009. Several notices to this effect have been sent to me. I doubt it.

As a law student, I discovered a special interest in First Amendment jurisprudence. I was fortunate to attend a seminar dealing with this area of American Constitutional law. I believe that the principle of freedom of speech is a magnificent and always endangered aspect of American society for which we must struggle every day. You do not suppress the speech of your neighbor, even if you disagree or regard that speech (or any form of expression) as more than mistaken. You should express your own opinions -- hopefully, these exchanges of opinions can be civil -- while avoiding the assassination of your political antagonists. This refraining from violence will disappoint the "Cubanazos" (of all genders). ("Why U.S. Courts Must Not Condone Torture.")

"Agreement on disagreement" is the essential requirement in a democracy and free society. If you can't make that commitment -- or if you fail to see that such tolerance for dissent and disagreement is a matter of right -- then you will never be a free person, much less will you be in a position to bring "freedom" to others. This is especially intended for the Cuban-American Right-wingers and their political protection in Florida and New Jersey. You can't beat up ideas.

Over this past weekend, I have made corrections of a single essay -- previously corrected dozens of times -- where the "errors" inserted were not to be found in earlier printed versions of the same text. The goal of these efforts -- part of a long series of crimes committed against me -- is to bring about a kind of collapse through despair and frustration. I feel stronger and more determined after such experiences. First Amendment violations are much worse when they are committed or made possible by "state action." It doesn't take much to establish the necessary state action. Anne Milgram? Senator Bob?

I will focus on further allegations of corruption, criminality, fraud, mendacity and bias in the New Jersey legal system. I will make certain to disseminate those charges against Garden State law and lawyers, as widely as possible, through the Internet. I will make it a project to attack that corrupt legal system, to chip away at the courts and officials of that foul-smelling turf for the rest of my life. I suspect that there are forces amplifying my critique already. I am sure that there will be more such assistance. Given the opportunity to do so, I will speak publicly of these matters. (See "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.") My discussions will always be supported by objective sources and solid research in legal materials.

The Constitution of the United States of America, First Amendment, remains a marvel of the world and a great humanistic achievement, equalled in a tiny number of other societies (perhaps) and surpassed in none. That magnificent document is almost a miracle in the history of human political and legal life. Here is what the First Amendment says concerning speech:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The principle was applied to the states through the "due process" clauses of the 4th and 14th Amendments. Like Justice Hugo Black, I am pretty generous in First Amendment disputes in favor of the free expression principle as well as the autonomy of every human conscience -- especially when it comes to political controversies -- because free speech is at the heart of our democracy. American society has made a public commitment to this idea. We have sacrificed human lives to defend this freedom. America set an example for the world during two centuries and more. America's exemplary status may now have been lost. I am "petitioning the government for a redress of some grievances."

People have gone to prison rather than surrender their free speech rights or other fundamental rights which are essential to their humanity, like privacy and self-determination. I will not abandon my right to speak freely. I will not be conditioned into refraining from criticizing the New Jersey mafia and/or their political protection. I will not legitimate the crimes committed against me or the incompetence of the tribunals that have allowed this twenty-year odyssey to continue for much too long. Mr. Rabner, these crimes must be placed at your doorstep.

October 28, 2008 at 9:05 A.M. efforts to reach my MSN group were obstructed this morning. This essay was posted at Critique and vandalized overnight. At this time, I am unable to post the corrected version of the text. However, I will spend the rest of the day and night in an effort to do so. It will be defaced, once again. I will continue to revise and re-post it, against all obstructions. (See "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

New Jersey has relinquished any authority to speak of "ethics" in tainted and increasingly meaningless, bought and paid for legal proceedings in the most corrupt jurisdiction in the nation. (See "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead" and "How Censorship Works in America.") Writing to fundamentalist would-be censors of his books, Kurt Vonnegut said:

"It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment. Our American heirs may find it incredible, as most foreigners do right now, that a nation would want to enforce as a law something which sounds more like a dream, ... "

Free speech has become only a dream (or a lie?), much too often, thanks to the latest technologies of surveillance and control as well as the sadism that they feed. Internet texts are subject to alteration (very easily) with the resources of government. This essay has been revised several times, thus far, after "errors" mysteriously appeared in the text. Journalists should take heed. The practices directed against me will be used soon against large publications. This struggle -- my daily fight for the oxygen of freedom -- will soon be shared by my literary friends on the margins of America's political conversation.

October 27, 2008 at 7:01 P.M. my computer's clock shows "5:58 P.M." as the time. I wonder what happened during the hour or so that the clock and my security system, perhaps, were not working? Have any essays been altered by hackers today? What a shock that would be!

My right to speak and your right of access to my words are inseparable. This very text is written without the certainty that I will be able to reach my sites in order to post it. Worse, I anticipate the daily wars that will be fought by me to repair and restore the essay -- after many insertions of "errors" and defacements -- intended to further harm a person who can only be described as a "tortured dissident." I dread the thought that such psychological torture of a person is aided and abetted (for a small fee) by so-called journalists or political party "soldiers," along with members of the bar in any American jursidiction. Writing of the revolution in American jurisprudential understandings after 9/11, Judith Butler says:

"The U.S. shows contempt for its own constitution and the protocols of international law in relegating law to an instrumentality of the state and suspending law in the interests of the state. When a reporter asked the DOD [Department of Defense] representatives why a military tribunal system was required, given that both a civil court and a military court system already exist, they responded that they needed another "instrument," given the new circumstances. The law is not that to which the state is subject nor that which distinguishes between lawful state action and unlawful, but is now expressly understood as an instrument, an instrumentality of power, one that can be applied and suspended at will." -- This was the view of Dr. Goebbels in Nazi Germany. -- "Sovereignty consists now in the variable application, contortion, and suspension of the law; it is, in its current form, a relation to law: exploitative, instrumental, disdainful, preemptory, arbitrary."

Press reports indicate that American military forces have carried out raids resulting in the killing of an alleged terrorist in Syria, a non-combatant nation, also in Pakistan (a country that is ostensibly assisting the U.S. in the "War on Terror"), both actions are clear violations of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations at peace with the United States.

Eight civilians were killed in Syria, including women and children. The number of persons killed in Pakistan is not reported. No expression of condolences or offers of compensation have been forthcoming from American officials. There has been no prominent discussion in the U.S. media of these crimes committed by Americans. My fight against New Jersey's censorship and state criminality is a pretty lonely one sometimes. America's military action weakens the previously pro-U.S. -- or at least neutral -- governments in those countries and strengthens Islamic fundamentalist factions.

" ... in justifying the attack American officials said the Bush administration was determined to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provided a rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries' consent."

Eric Schmitt & Thom Shanker, "Officials Say U.S. Killed an Iraqui in Raid in Syria," in The New York Times, October 28, 2008, at p. A1.

If Russia, for example, determined that a wanted terrorist was living in Scranton, Pennsylvania, then sent elite military forces into the U.S. on a mission to kill the person and "took out" a dozen more civilians who happened to be standing by, then explained that this was a matter of Russia's definition of their national security, would we agree that the action is legitimate? I doubt it.

These countries that were previously neutral -- bear this point in mind -- whose intelligence agencies may not have given assistance to anti-American factions before, will certainly do so now. Furthermore, they will establish relations with other countries that feel "aggrieved" in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East to sponsor actions harmful of American interests, probably within the next five years.

The animosity directed at the current U.S. government will come back to haunt all of us (and our children) for many years to come in the form of economic harm as well as quasi-military strikes at U.S. targets in the world. I do not believe that current military actions will make us safer. I am sure that they make the world a more dangerous place for everyone, especially women and children in many countries. You can be sure that people in several countries are thinking of ways to repeat the Abu Ghraib horrors with Americans as victims, probably right here in New York.

My daily encounter with (I believe) government-protected forces for censorship in America is being seen by many persons in the world. This makes a lie of America's Constitution and undermines our credibility in free speech and all human rights cases. I realize that many Right-wing Cuban-American paramilitary groups do not approve of my opinions because they are insufficiently hostile to the Cuban people or any people. I admit to disapproving of the mafia. I do not ask that persons approve of my opinions or agree with them. I am merely seeking to use my right to speak freely in protest of torture and suppression of speech as well as years of abuse at the hands of politically powerful persons. I will continue to struggle to do exactly that. (See "Letter From a Torture Chamber" and "What is it like to be tortured?" as well as "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

I will do my best to return to MSN and repair the harm done to my writings during this period of obstruction and denials of access to my own work. The anticipated response from the forces engaged in this censorship effort will be to crank up the slander machine. Incidents in my life from infancy will be twisted into insults and disseminated as "personal attacks." At this point, even such an effort at character assassination coupled with economic harm may backfire against my adversaries in the Garden State.